Discover Unexpected Empowerment: Lean into Personal Values

Living a life aligned with values could evoke a vision of a retreat, a gong and some chanting. Yes some introspection was required. However, it was instinct that was the motivation for alignment. From instinct came drive, an inner energy to live by my personal values leading to a natural flow, and it was only through reflection did I notice it.

Organisations Set Out Values - Not People

Organisational values provide a shared understanding, they unite and strengthen their people by providing something that every employee can be certain about. 

Traditionally leaders lead by example the company's commitment to the vision and values. Time and resources to explain, train and live the essence of the company is dedicated by leaders to help those around them to live and experience the values together. When it comes to ourselves we often don’t consider their importance to how we feel about ourselves and our life.

Personally, the essence of my values started have meaning whilst considering The Honest Partnership vision; to be a catalyst for creating a ripple effect for positive wellbeing. How do I know my values are reflected within the vision?

Some strong indicators are my passion; I have great passion for empowering people

Speak with enthusiasm; my hands conduct as I explain the knock on effect of empowering people and how it spill over into peoples home and work lives.

Care deeply about the effects of empowerment; I have spent time researching its significance. I’ve also enjoyed the process of learning how empowered people are more likely to act more positively to others.

Great pleasure: I find pleasure in recognising my work has a place in influencing the spread of good vibes - it excites me.

These are pretty strong indications of how important it is to me to enable empowerment in others. I’m deeply connected to enabling others, learning and sharing that wisdom this is fundamentally who I am and it sparks a natural energy and joy which comes from within me and spills out. However, it wasn't until the current crisis that I really understood how important these values were.

Instinct Lead Me Here

As the news cycles filled with hard realities of lockdown; the psychological impact of uncertainty seeped into client sessions. Stress and anxiety were building, it was slow but significant. I instinctively offered a client a 20 minute session to listen, to allow them to process their experience. From this a natural ripple effect occurred; the client asked if I would work with their team, team members asked if I’d work with their sister or a friend and so on as the spring moved into summer months.

In total I logged about 35 hours thats over 100 free sessions where I found time to witness and assure people their stories were being heard and some stories were sweeter than others. I was able to empower people with tools and techniques to cope with the good and bad days I was living my values whilst full-time Mumming a toddler; the vision was being realised.

Reflection - When Alignment Was Realised

In a moment of self-reflection, no incense was present, did my values emerge. Whilst considering The Honest Partnership vision did I connect with my passion points which reflect my underlying values. As schools started to re-open the intnsity of my sessions slowed and I happen to reflect on the people I’d worked with. A realisation emerge of how I had instinctively live my values - I sat with the realisation and what filled me was a great sense of pride and satisfaction. Its not often we give ourselves space or time to feel good about what we do but I took it and absorbed it.

Without reflection you can sometimes miss out on what is important to you. Without reflection I could have totally missed out on having a sense of pride for instinctively embracing the situation. Without reflection I could have missed that I had spent lockdown living my values daily and how affirming and empowering the experience had been for me personally.

Self-Coaching Question

Next time you notice how passionate you become about a situation, an experience, a subject or a cause consider what values are being expressed in you by asking;

What is important to me right now?